February 04, 2006

sometimes i get email saying damn, j., it's nice you're posting all this interesting stuff since you left your last gig, and we're glad you have work, and it's nice to hear about web2.0 and photo sharing and chewing gum and contests, but remember when you used to actually w-r-i-t-e shit?

and i usually say, you mean when I was a practitioner, practitioning the art of blogging on a daily basis rather than a practitioner OF blogging? and then they/you say yes, that thing then.

now i don't take offense, but sometimes i like to write back and say didn't you get the press release--blogging grew up. and then we laugh. as if. i say, did you know i got my first check from Google in four fucking years? i don't know it must be like .000000008 cent per word if you average it out. Usually I charge like $400 per word. unless the word is common. like i'll give you crap for $4. but dude, google sent me money. ha!

i can't wait until blogging gets stupid again and we can all go back to REALLY talking to eachother, post to post to post, him to her to me, rather than aggregating and newsreadering up one another's asses.

There's too much too much and who is listening? the last of the bunch who care can't stop it from becoming everything it wasn't supposed to, from becoming one big broadcast to no one, supermedia to the supernova, one big barge on one big lake moving one big river of shit. Did i say river of shit? on the nosy.

the real tricky part comes when you start to make a living that is at least partially related to this space. why is it tricky, well, because it is. because some people tell other people they own this space and other people are doe-eyed, asking: Does that mean I blow you now?

of course the king says yes my dear--let the blowing commence.

i remember when i used to watch run-ins with heavy weights on the tech/blogging scene, and the heavy weight would threaten or take action, quite literally, to put someone else's gig in danger. not because they should, but because they could.

now we all can, and what's next is that folks will be getting dooced from their blogosphere gigs and stuck back into some dumb corporate gig for sticking too many pricker bushes in the socks of too many of the blogfia's army.

my point is, janice was right and is right, the best feeling in the world is having nothing to lose. you want to talk bitter sweet, then taste my bile baby because i'm home. all-gone is the firmest ground you'll ever stand on.

these are some of the things i say to people when they write me.

sometimes i use different words, but same basic theme: destrangulation.

no wonder you've all stopped emailing. maybe i should reevaluate the honesty thing.

i guess what i'm trying to say is that some of the folks i made mad when i called them on shit and told them the precise color of their excrement are waiting for something from me now. it'd make life easier to give it to them.

3
comments:

My blog is purely a hobby for me (no money makin' goin' on there) and lordy knows I'm not very technical, so it's always on a merely personal level - but I often cringe when I catch myself worrying what to write for the people that read. When I get real - when I get honest about something - I also get concerned that the poor soul who drops by will feel as if they've been slapped. Or had a bucket of cold water thrown on them at least.

My current (painful) post was not difficult to write because it is a story I've been carrying around for so long but I can imagine how it might be difficult, embarrassing even, to read. And for that, part of me is sorry. I fucking hate people pleasers - esp. when it's me.

Ah, Sister, I'm with you there. But now my brother makes my life hell if I post anything personal about him or my mother. I yearn for those days when I lived and loved elsewhere and no one in my family knew I even had a blog. Your blog sings because you feel. FEEL. Maybe when my mother finally dies I hope that I'll be able to FEEL again. You're still my inspiration, kiddo.